Living ‘Free and Real’ An Eco-Project’s Endeavours within and against Late Capitalism A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 Elvira Wepfer Social Anthropology School of Social Sciences [Contents] Maps and Figures 5 Abstract 6 Declaration 7 Copyright Statement 8 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11 Living ‘Free and Real’ Within and Against Late Capitalism 17 Austerity and Resistance: Contemporary Greece 21 Eco-Projects in the Anthropocene 24 Dialectical Utopianism and Social Change 30 Taking Responsibility: Self-Transformation and the Will to be Otherwise 33 Methodology, Positionality, and the Field Site 35 Structure of the Thesis at Hand 39 1 ‘Modern’ Greece. Endeavours within and against late Capitalist Modernity 42 Modernity and Democracy 46 Conspiracies, Sense-Making and Social Critique: The Inception of Free&Real 51 National Politics and Citizenship 57 Cutting the Ties? Emancipatory Efforts between Family and Society 65 2 Nature and the ‘Real’. How a Consequential Ethics and Pragmatic Realism produce Radical Environmentalism 75 2 Urgency and Critical Time at Telaithrion Project 80 Consequential Ecological Ethics: The Permaculture of Free&Real 88 Pragmatic Realism and Radical Environmentalism 94 Contextual Veganism and Situational Ethics 98 Killings and ‘Indistinction’: Positioning Oneself within Nature 106 Nature’s Magic 108 3 School of Life. Subject Making Mechanisms at Telaithrion Project 113 Self-Transformation and Social Change 118 The School of Life 126 The Self and Society 131 Remix: Cultural Appropriation for Social Change 136 The Prefigurative Self 143 4 The Limits of Hospitality. Negotiations of Personal Space in a Temporary Place 145 A Temporary, Transitory Place 149 Friendship at Telaithrion Project 151 Hospitality and the Subversion of Urban Anonymity 157 Spatial and Temporal Negotiations 164 A Seemingly Free Gift: Discrepancies between the Virtual and the Actual 171 5 The Leisurely Life. Lived Time Experiences within and beyond the Value of Labour Time 179 Daily Work without Routine 182 Structure and Boredom 187 Just Be: Meaningful Temporalities and the Value of Existence 193 Doing Things the Right Way 199 Kinship and Relationality of Time 204 3 Social Time 209 6 Between Self-Determination and Authority. The Social Order of Free&Real 212 Against World Leaders and for Self-Determination 216 Hierarchy of Knowledge: Free&Real’s Social Order 221 Personified Authority: Implications of Knowledge Accumulation 229 The Scientific Decision Making Method and the Production of Technocratic Knowledge 233 (Not) Taking Decisions 238 Conclusion 245 Appendix i 250 Appendix ii 254 Appendix iii 258 References 262 Word count: 85,884 4 [Maps and Figures] Map 1. Itinerary from Athens to Agios 12 Map 2. North Evia 76 Figure 1. Author entering the field site 35 Figure 2. Sitting in the living room 54 Figure 3. During a project presentation 83 Figure 4. Dug-out basin for the lake 86 Figure 5. Permaculture principles 88 Figure 6. Making bokashi in the Workshop yard 90 Figure 7. Permaculture teachings in the Workshop yard 93 Figure 8. Picking mushrooms 110 Figure 9. Gine i allagi pou thes na deis ston kosmo: Be the change you want to see in the world 118 Figure 10. Cleaning thyme 132 Figure 11. Making toothpaste 137 Figure 12. Model of the school for self-sufficiency and sustainability 149 Figure 13. Happy muddy faces 152 Figure 14. Construction work 153 Figure 16. Kitchen dance 154 Figure 17. The Hexa yurt by night 167 Figure 18. Model of the Mountain Site 175 Figure 19. The Workshop yard after a good sweeping 184 Figure 20. Turning away from the glamourous urban lifestyle 195 Figure 21. The Cuckoo yurt at the Test Site 200 Figure 22. The beach, three minutes from the Test Site 201 Figure 23. Cutting vegetables, wearing a Free&Real t-shirt 225 Figure 24. Compost toilet at the Workshop 236 5 [Abstract] At the northern edge of Greece’s second-largest island Evia, a fluctuating group of people under the name Free&Real aim to build up a school for self-sufficiency and sustainability. In response to late capitalist relations, which they perceive to be exploitative, depleting, and alienating, they pose their project as a learning ground in which to recreate human-environment relations towards regenerative ends. Their environmental, political-economic, and social critique resonates with contemporary civil society initiatives in Europe and North America, where a growing number of eco-projects propose alternatives to the dominant paradigm of profit through exploitation via holistic and non- harmful socio-environmental relations. My thesis depicts, analyses, and contextualises these endeavours of social change, paying attention to the ways in which Free&Real creatively critique contemporary society from within and against late capitalism. They do so through reconfiguring their ethics and practices that aim to re-establish relations with self and other – both human and non-human. Through this, they aim to create alternative futures within the present through practice, and through this prefiguration to transform the present towards more ecologically ethical practices. Through six chapters, I follow the group’s aspirations to situate human existence firmly within the natural environment, to transform their selves towards ethical ideals, and to recreate economic relations outside the formal economy. I further trace their grappling with contemporary expressions of modernity, the limits of altruism, and the complexities of authority. As the group occupy themselves with transformative, educational, and outreach goals, they reproduce some of the very epistemologies and relations they attempt to overcome, while at the same time proposing novel readings of and engagements with others. Through this creative remix, Free&Real generate innovative local responses to some of the pressing issues of contemporary times. Examining these, my thesis contributes to discussions of social change, environmentalism, the anthropology of Greece and Europe, and critique of capitalist relations. 6 [Declaration] No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 7 [Copyright Statement] i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright of related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given the University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for examples graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=24420), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, the University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s police on Presentation of Theses. 8 [Acknowledgments] My most heartfelt thanks go to Apostolos, Anastasia, Thodoris, Moka, Andreas, Spyros, Manthos, and Karmen. You generously shared your time and space, your thoughts and insights, and over the course of a year, your very lives with me. Sometimes it was quite difficult, and sometimes it was great fun. In any case, it was a very intense year. I am grateful for it all, and I remain your friend. This extends further to some wonderful people I met at Telaithrion Project, especially Rose, Jungmi, Giannis, Maria, Luis, Areti, Eleni, Fofi & Giorgos, and Kostas. Furthermore, the many visitors who passed by Telaithrion Project between summer 2015 and summer 2016 informed and enriched this thesis. I thank you all. I would not have come far in my endeavours to write this thesis without the professional and caring support of my two supervisors, Dr. Michelle Obeid and Dr. Chika Watanabe. Thank you for your in-depth engagement with my work, your inspiring and precise comments, and your clarity and structure. In a similar way, cohort and academic staff at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester added much theoretical depth, critical thought, and amusing diversion to this four-year project. Stef, Soumhya, and Maia, thank you for our seminars, and for the good times we spent at Sand Bar. Letizia, Lana, José, Matt, Ahmad & Elahe, Skyler, Artur, Gudrun, Rosa, Jasmine, Jeremy, Patrick, Francesco, John and Theo – I love you all, and I hope to remain in touch with you. I was financially supported over two years through a helpful scholarship from the University of Manchester’s School of Social Sciences, as well as through a generous fieldwork bursary from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. I am grateful for this. Finally, I was lucky to be introduced to the Greek culture through a set of lively, joyful, and engaging friends in Manchester. The many conversations I had with Faye, Korina, Ericka, Myrsini, Katerina, Andreas, Vasilis, and the whole ‘Greek community’ continue to guide me in my understanding and appreciation of what is going on at the south-eastern margins of Europe.